Court to Weigh Legal Aid in Contempt Cases

Article here. Excerpt:

'WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court agreed on Monday to decide whether poor people who face incarceration for civil contempt are entitled to court-appointed lawyers.

In a series of decisions starting with Gideon v. Wainwright in 1963, the Supreme Court has held that poor people facing the loss of liberty for crimes must be provided with lawyers. The question in the new case, Turner v. Price, No. 10-10, is whether that right also applies where incarceration is meant to be coercive rather than punitive.

The South Carolina Supreme Court ruled in March that Michael D. Turner, who was held in civil contempt and sentenced to a year in prison for failing to pay child support, had no constitutional right to a lawyer. The point of the sentence was to make Mr. Turner pay rather than to punish him, the court said.'

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Judged bashes Probation Department for gender bias in favor of leniency for girls

Article here. Excerpt:

'A Queens judge is blasting the city's Probation Department for going easier on teenage girls than boys - even when they commit the same crimes.

Family Court Judge John Hunt accused probation of gender bias for trying to spare all but the most violent girls from prison time and the scarlet letter of the juvenile delinquent.

Hunt analyzed the cases of eight teenagers who had come before him - four boys and four girls - and found that probation routinely recommended tougher treatment for boys.'

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"Maybe it's time to let women rule world"

Essay here. Excerpt:

"Statistics this holiday season are appalling. Studies show that men are 11 times more likely to commit murder. They cause 98 per cent of sexual assaults, 93 per cent of armed robberies and one in three women worldwide is either physically or sexually abused by men.

Consider the treacherous Ponzi affairs in recent years. It's the dastardly deeds of Bernard Madoff, Earl Jones and others who have wiped out the life savings of thousands of honest people. They are all men. So is there any way to change men's behaviour and make them more civilized?
...

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IA Action Alert: We're Making a Difference

From an Intact America email:

We're making a difference! Well over a year ago, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said it would come out with a recommendation in favor of routine infant circumcision. Soon after, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) formed its Task Force on Circumcision, with the same plans for a recommendation.

But neither has recommended anything... which means they're listening to us.

Thousands of intactivists throughout the country have signed our petition and sent letters demanding that our baby boys be kept intact—and it's working. We HAVE to keep up the pressure and tell the AAP what the majority of American parents already know: circumcision is an outdated, harmful, and unnecessary procedure that has NO health benefits. And it needs to stop. Now.

Tell the AAP to stop cutting our babies!

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A Voice for Men: Some Words on Abortion and the MRM

Essay here. Excerpt:

'First there is the problem of political affiliation. As already stated in the rough draft of the policy I wrote, the AVfM position on mainstream politics is clear. They won’t be part of the equation here except to point out that all popular political groups are misandric and antithetical to the cause.

Abortion is highly polemicist, with the mainstay of its opponents squarely on the neoconservative religions right. Socons, as we call them. It’s a group with more nuts than a pecan orchard, and few of them would love nothing more than to have all men chained into a state sanctioned marriage (between one man and one woman, of course), which is to say they would ultimately make slaves of all of us.

Sometimes the enemy of my enemy is just another enemy.

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Australia: Student of All-Boys School Wins Coveted Writing Award

Link here. Excerpt:

'Blackfriars Priory School student, James Lawler, is the winner of “The Bic Young Australian Writer of the Year Award” for 2010. An initiative of not-for-profit community organisation, Children’s Charity Network, The Australian Children’s Literary Board aims to promote and recognise literary excellence via this national competition open to young writers from Years 3 to 12.

With approximately 20,000 entries, the school community is extremely proud of this accomplishment. James’ story “As I Stumble on Trembling Legs” tells the tale of a day working in the frenetic pace of a fast food restaurant. Tinged with humour, James builds dramatic tension in this story based on his own experiences in the industry.'

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Australia: Jury convicts woman in rape case

Link to article here. Excerpt:

'A woman has been found guilty of raping another woman in a toilet cubicle at an inner Brisbane hotel.

Anne-Marie O'Loughlin, 25, had pleaded not guilty in the Brisbane District Court to two counts of rape, deprivation of liberty and sexual assault.

A jury on Friday afternoon found O'Loughlin guilty of two rape charges and deprivation of liberty.

She was found not guilty of the sexual assault charge.'

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Woman and family convicted of trafficking in and holding slaves

Story here. And not just her, but her husband and children. But this is a rare case of actually holding the primary criminal, if she is female, primarily accountable. Excerpt:

'Nicole's journey started in 2002, when she was barely 12, in her small village in western Ghana. She and about 20 other girls were held in plain sight, but always under the watchful eyes of their captors.
...
The girls' families sent them to the United States after being assured they would receive a better education. But once they arrived, they were forced to work in hair braiding shops across the Newark area -- just a short drive from New York City, right in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty.
...
"My dad ... worked hard so I could go to school, so when my auntie came and told my family that I could go to a school in the U.S. ... they trusted her," she said. "Everyone was happy about it."

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Opinion: Abuse a Human Problem

Column here. Excerpt:

'Your "Upcoming Trial for Alleged Wife Killer Sheds Light on Larger Problem" story was sexist, stereotyping men as violent oppressors and women as innocent victims, and made a false claim.

Your sentence, "That attitude keeps many immigrant women — and they are, overwhelmingly, women — from reporting abuse" misleads the reader that the vast majority of domestic violence victims are women.

Although men under-report domestic violence more than women in both crime reports and crime surveys, the two-sex survey data consistently shows women initiate domestic violence as often as men, that 38 percent of injured victims are men, that women use weapons more often than men, and that self-defense does not explain female violence. California State University summarizes almost 200 of these studies at http://www.csulb.edu/~mfiebert/assault.htm.'

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"Abuse-Prone Women Around the World Need Help, Research Shows"

From SAVE:

Hundreds of studies conducted in the United States have examined the nature and extent of domestic violence. For example, a U.S. Centers for Disease Control survey reported that among young adults, half of all partner aggression was mutual, and 71% of the instigators of nonreciprocal partner violence are female.

But what about partner aggression in other countries?

Stop Abusive and Violent Environments (SAVE) has just published a new Policy Briefing: What is the Profile of Domestic Violence Around the World? (http://www.saveservices.org/policymakers/what-is-the-profile-of-domestic-violence-around-the-world/)

The briefing summarizes the findings from 6 community surveys of intimate partner aggression conducted in 38 countries throughout the world.

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Grandmother charged with murder after girl thrown

Story here. Excerpt:

'A 50-year-old woman accused of throwing her granddaughter to her death off a parking garage walkway has been charged with murder.

Carmela Dela Rosa allegedly threw two-and-a-half-year-old Angelyn Ogdoc off a sixth floor outdoor walkway at Tysons Corner Center around 7:15 p.m. Monday, Fairfax County Police spokesperson Tawny Wright tells WTOP.

Dela Rosa was arraigned Tuesday morning at Fairfax County Circuit Court. She is due back there on Jan. 4.
...
Dela Rosa, of Fairfax, was walking with other family members Monday when she picked up and threw the girl off the walkway in a matter of seconds, Wright says.'

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Slate: "How to Buck Up the Science Ladies"

Article here. Excerpt:

'Last week, researchers at the University of Colorado published a psych experiment that seems almost too good to be true. They showed that two 15-minute writing exercises, administered to an intro physics class early in the semester, could substantially boost the scores of female students. Even more curious: the exercises had nothing to do with physics. Instead, students were asked to write about things that mattered to them, like creativity or relationships with family and friends. How could a few paragraphs on personal values translate into enduring better mastery of pulleys and frictionless planes?
...
...Stereotype threat is a universal offender: It can sabotage white men on the basketball court or men more broadly on a test of social sensitivity. Whenever people are made to worry that they might confirm a negative assumption—for instance, that girls can't do math or that white men can't jump—they may be less likely to do their best. Frustratingly, the stereotypes they want so badly to avoid instead may instead become self-fulfilling....
...

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Women in prison: a growing population

Article here. Excerpt:

'...women are the fastest-growing prison population in the state, in the country, and in the world.

Why? It’s hard to say. Overall, the prison population has boomed since the 1980′s, so it only seems natural that the numbers of women would increase as well–but proportionally, women still outnumber men compared to 30 years ago. One common explanation is the increasing participation of women in the narcotics industry, whether as users or dealers. Others contend that women are often arrested as accessories to crimes involving their husbands and boyfriends.
...
As the population of women in prison continues to grow, it’ll be interesting to see how correctional institutions evolve to respond to this population’s needs–will the system become more rehabilitative? More focused on sustaining famiy relationships during incarceration? Will they not change at all? Should they change at all?'

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We Need to Stop Excusing Women's Violence

Blog entry here. Excerpt:

'For the past few weeks one of the the stars of MTV's hit show, "Teen Mom," Amber Portwood, has been the focus of a whole lot of media attention for her domestically violent behavior caught on tape towards the father of her toddler child Leah and boyfriend, Gary Shirley.

Every news outlet from CBS to CNN to TMZ has written or spoken about the on-camera verbal and physical assaults that Amber has directed towards Gary. Gary, to his credit, has never physically retaliated.

Although I don't know Gary personally I know thousands of "Gary's" in similar situations. Gary, like other men in these situations who do not hit women or defend themselves against a woman's violence, know the rules of the game i.e. if a woman hits you stand there in take it because if you defend yourself you're going to jail. There is no excuse for abuse, unless it's a woman doing the abusing.'

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Child Murder: It Must be the Husband's Fault

On A Voice for Men, here. Excerpt:

'“Ju know, they say eet was the hoosbands fault,” announced the thirty something Mexican immigrant who was cutting my hair that day, two months before 9/11 changed the world. The big story of the moment was not about terrorists or toppled buildings, but about Andrea Yates, the Houston area mother of five that snuffed the life out of all of her children a mere half hour from where I live. And my stylist, using up every word of almost English in her repertoire, was attempting to 'splain to me how the whole mess could rightly be hung on the man.

“Oh, yeah?” I asked, unsurprised at the stupid remark, but too far into the haircut to get up and walk. “Who are they?” I was instantly pissed and made no effort to hide it.

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